WellCommons: An Experiment In Journalism

WellCommons is an experiment by Lawrence Journal-World and News looking to understand what happens when social media is integrated with journalism.

Centered around health in Lawrence, Kansas, Janes Stevens, director of Media Strategies at The World Company explarnalismins:

We’ve engaged the health community in Lawrence a tiny little town in Lawrence, Kansas…and they’ve been helping us and participating in this. So they will each have their own group pages on there, and they’re responsible for the accuracy of their pages, as we are responsible for the accuracy of ours. So it’s like fractals. It’s groups within groups within groups.

We’ve written previously about the role of reporters, columnists, curators in journalism; and while WellCommons is still in a pre-beta phase and lacking details, the content and structure presents an option as to how news sites could gather communities around journalists that would be in charge of their own content and those from their community.

[ via NPR ]